addresses—practical suggestions. 
447 
been blessed with our usual harvest, and in manj r particulars fully 
satisfactory, and we come to the financial features of the year not 
mourning, but with hearts full of gratitude and peace. 
We do not come to the yearly settlement of our accounts with 
the sweetness of the grangers. We do not propose to do away with 
the evils we bear by holding dark lantern meetings and refusing 
to discuss political questions, but by the ballot, which Whittier 
describes as— 
“Falling lightly as tlie snowflake on the sod, 
Which executes a Freeman’s will as lightning does the will of God! ” 
The time was when we cut our own grain, when we did our 
own threshing—when men used the scythe and the flail. Now' 
Racine does our threshing—every two hours she finishes a thresh¬ 
er. Cohoes Falls cuts our grass—we no longer do that with the 
scythe that costs us but a dollar. Cohoes does that with her ma¬ 
chinery, and we call it monopoly ! We, as agriculturists, are 
prone to shirk labor; we feel too proud to use a flail, a scythe, or 
even a beetle ! Hundreds of farmers endeavor to use machiner}^ 
which they buy at exorbitant prices, and put money into the 
hands of manufacturers who become immensely rich from the toil 
of the farmer. Too many endeavor to farm with brains rather 
than work. Such farmers have bad bank accounts, while the 
farmer who works has his stores of produce, his stock, his home 
without mortgage, and he feels independent. 
Labor is the life-blood of energy. We must have a genera¬ 
tion with moral elements of character. We must look to the 
mothers for a regeneration of our race. There never was an ener¬ 
getic man without an energetic mother. She was no pampered 
doll in a parlor, but hers was an active, living energy that gave 
character to her children. We must think ! we must act! 
The Governor tells farmers to combine against monopolies. 
We are told to dig rifle pits, to fortify, to intrench against money. 
If President Twombly’s doctrine is carried out, as set forth in 
his address before the State Agricultural Society, it is war, not 
civil government. When you sap and mine, and intrench, it is 
military. When the “Little Giants” their lamps and the 
“ Wide Awakes ” began their march, how long before the boom 
